As overall crime continued to drop in Chicago in 2025, the city ended the year with the fewest homicides in 60 years.

Preliminary crime data from the Chicago Police Department showed the number of murders in Chicago dropped nearly 30%, from 587 in 2024 to 416 in 2025. It's the lowest murder total for Chicago since 1965, and the first time since 2015 the city has seen fewer than 500 murders in a year.

Chicago has now seen four consecutive years with a drop in homicides.

Chicagoans are used to seeing crime slow down when single-digit temperatures hit, but what these preliminary year-end crime numbers reveal is that something changed last year, but can it continue into this new year.

In the final days of 2025, shots echoed outside St. Sabina Church in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood, leaving three men shot, including one player at the church's adult basketball league.

"We were violated by this happening at St. Sabina, because this is our community," Rev. Michael Pfleger said.

Police released images of two men they believe are connected to the shooting on Dec. 28. All three victims survived, and now fall into a category so many do in Chicago – a shooting victim.

"I got probably 20 to 25 phone calls within 24 hours after it was put on the news, giving me names. I turned all that over to police," Pfleger said.

The pastor said such a response to the shooting outside his church is key in driving down crime – people stepping up and helping police.

"When everybody steps up and says enough is enough, things change," Pfleger said.

In addition to the drop in homicides, CPD data showed there were 1,847 shooting victims in Chicago last year, compared to 2,797 in 2024, a drop of more than 33%. Shooting incidents were down 35%, robberies were down 36%, and aggravated batteries were down 11%.

"To mother whose child got shot or killed in the last weekend or this weekend, that doesn't mean a damn thing. Until there is nobody being shot, the work continues," Pfleger said.

Pfleger has been anti-violence advocate for years. In 2018, he and others shut down the Dan Ryan Expressway, protesting to bring the violence to everyone's face.

He said, for years, neighborhoods thought they were immune from the violence, and now the crime has spread.

"Once everybody starts to see that nobody is really safe anywhere, and violence grows to that level, and everybody gets involved, that's when we stop it," Pfleger said.

Later this month, the city will release a comprehensive 2025 crime data report breaking down the ages of the victims, and where the crimes took place.